


in blossom

by Falcine



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Memory Related, Pre-Civil War (Marvel), adjusting in bucharest, bucky just wanted his plums, slow slow adjustment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6889213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falcine/pseuds/Falcine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three times Bucky didn't get to eat his plums. </p><p>'Gave a kid from work my last plum today and I remembered the week you got pneumonia and I gave you half of all my meals, even though we were both starving.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	in blossom

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write about Bucky carving out a life for himself in Bucharest and went about it in the least creative way possible. Those plums, dammit.

**i.**

 

Plums aren’t in season this time of year, but the ones sitting there in the little stall just off the side of the road look just as plump and tender as ever. Barnes thinks about the rest of the change sitting in his pocket and there’s something about the dry, brittle winter air that makes him crave that sweet, sticky juice.

He takes a step to the side, tries out that smile he’s been working on.  _ Why the hell not.  _

“Coupla those plums there,” he mumbles, reaching into his pocket for the meagre change. Just enough for two, then, but it’ll be enough, and he says as much. The words roll around in his mouth, sitting weird and it’s not just the language. 

The plastic bag he’s handed feels too thin like they always do. Barnes shifts it into his right hand, just in case. For a moment, he wonders what the hell he’s doing, like rent’s not a pain in the fucking ass, like keeping down a job is harder than it seems when someone inevitably catches a glimpse of his arm or his guns, like he needs plums at all.

The old dame gives him a soft lil’ smile, and then she reaches out to pat him on the left wrist. 

Barnes could’ve ripped through her fingers and he wouldn’t even have felt it. 

He counts change, instead, hands it over, forces himself to slip into that lopsided grin he learned from the Smithsonian. 

“You have a good day now, ma’am,” he says, and it feels like awkward this time, something like those words and that smile fit together like puzzle pieces, and maybe someday Barnes’ll fit into that picture too. 

For now, he starts heading back to his place, and it’s enough that he can walk with one hand holding a bag of fresh plums and the other still shoved in his pocket and lightly rubbing the leftover coins and not the knife strapped to his belt. 

 

* * *

 

Before he makes it back home, he finally catches a glimpse of the fuckers tagging him. 

Barnes catches himself in the middle of a sigh, remembers he doesn’t need to be silent anymore, then lets out his growl of frustration just for the hell of it. He takes his hand out of his pocket, slowly, shoves his thumbs into his belt loops and tenses. 

Two blocks later, they slip out of the alleys. 

Barnes whips out the knife, ducking under a hail of bullets and stabbing up into the mook’s ribs. The asshole manages to get a cut in with a switchblade Barnes’d dismissed and there’s a huge rip in his jacket now, thanks a  _ lot.  I’m not in the fucking mood for this,  _  he thinks, tossing him right into the second guy’s shot. 

The plastic bag’s broken, because of course it is, and the plums’ve spilled out all into the street. There’s no one around this neighbourhood this time of day, but the street lights are all messed up and there’s still the second guy coming up at him. 

Barnes rips the gun out of the dumb shit’s hands before he can do anything but aim and tosses back into the alley. The guy looks terrified but it’s his own damn fault for falling in with Hydra in the first place, so Barnes finds it hard to muster up any shread of sympathy left in him. 

The guy has to step all over his plums, too, and it’s been a goddamn long day, but there’s something about seeing those beautiful plums splattered all over the dirty cobblestone that pisses him off to all hell. Even more than the fact that he’s gonna have to get a new jacket now. Hell, even more than the surprise Hydra ambush. 

“I was gonna eat those, you know,” Barnes drawls, real slow, rolling his eyes when the Hydra mook looks like he’s gonna piss himself in terror. He sighs, knocks back his fist, punches the guy in his ugly mug just to shut him up. 

When it’s all over, his jacket’s ripped and his knife’s all bloodied up. Barnes rubs a hand over his forehead, day utterly ruined. 

Time to get back to the apartment before more Hydra mooks appear from fucking nowhere.

Still, before he leaves, he looks back at the dirty alleyway and the crushed plums, still bleedin’ purple and red all over the stones. 

There’s a whole mess of emotions tangled up in his head that Barnes doesn’t even want to poke at one a good day, so he just closes his eyes and lets the twinge in his stomach pass. When he opens ‘em again, they’re just plums, messed up but probably still sweet, wasted on the side of the road. 

_ What a fucking shame,  _ Barnes thinks, and starts to head home. 

 

* * *

 

**ii.**  
  


“This really where you live, Barnes?” Sorin asks as he kicks the door shut. Long day down at the docks, and Sorin’d looked half dead on his feet by the time the dust had cleared and the last of the cargo was shipped out. Barnes’d taken pity on the guy like his shithole was any better than Sorin’s shithole. 

“What about it?” Barnes asks, dropping his bag and sitting down on the mattress. 

Sorin cracks a grin. “Living in paradise, aren’t you, my friend?” 

Sorin is not Barnes’s friend, but he’s close enough, so Barnes  just shrugs. “It’s enough.”

That’s what is always is. Enough. Some days it’s colder than hell frozen over, or else the lights turn off without warning, but it’s enough.

Barnes shuffles over and yanks the fridge door open. “Want a beer?”

Beside him, Sorin’s head pops in. He squints into the fridge, raising an eyebrow at how it ain’t much, but there’s booze and veggies and that’s good enough for a meal most days. “S’too late for drinking.” The sky outside is pitch black. 

“Grab somethin’ else then.” 

“Kinda fancy a plum,” Sorin  says, plucking one of the  purple fruits out. The one left behind rolls on its empty shelf. 

He snorts, shutting the door. “Go ahead.” 

They chat, a bit, leaning against the cracked up kitchen counter while they both pretend that Sorin  doesn’t bite into the plum too enthusiastically, that he don’t look too thin and too tired. Barnes doesn’t make friends, but. 

“You got somewhere to stay tonight?” he asks. 

Sorin spits out the seed into his hand, wipes messily at his chin. When Barnes hands him an oily dishrag, he doesn't even hesitate before dragging it over his mouth. His face is clean shaven and gaunt. After a long time, Sorin tosses the rag back onto the counter and laughs, shaking his head. “You’re not the only one living in paradise.” 

Barnes is nothing if not unsociable on his good days, but even he knows when a man doesn’t want to talk about something. “Sure,” he says, cuffing Sorin on the back of his head. “You gotta invite me someday, buddy.” 

“Sure, sure,” Sorin says, waving a hand. “You wanna come with right now?” 

“Getting dark out,” Barnes says. Everyone loves to move out all their covert operatives at night, like the dark gives ‘em some sort of advantage. The ones that know better already know not to bother him. Barnes didn’t used to care, not when he’d first gotten in the city. Back then he had no damned idea what to do with himself and fighting back Hydra mooks was as good an idea as any. 

Well, he still has no fucking clue what to do with himself, but Barnes has the tact to not leave bodies strewn all over Bucharest’s streets. He’s grown to like the city, just a little. 

Sorin heaves a sigh and picks himself up off the counter. Barnes ain’t gonna stop him—no reason to pity a man when  he’s down anyways. 

Still, he pries the stubborn fridge door open again and fishes out the last plum. “Take it for the road, bud.” 

“Thanks,” Sorin says, plucking the fruit from Barnes’s gloved hand. “Seeya tomorrow at the docks.” 

Barnes gives him a mock salute, and then Sorin’s at the door. 

He reaches out and clasps the kid on the shoulder. This is a familiar thing, like his arm knows the motion before his brain’s even caught up with it. Barnes used to hate that, back before he realized it was all comin’ from a place before the haze in his mind. 

The door slams shut and Barnes sits back down on the mattress, ignoring the cloud of dust that kicks up. He gropes for the backpack shoved somewhere behind the mattress and pulls it out. In the dim light of the bare bulb barely clinging onto the ceiling, Barnes carefully takes out the latest notebook. 

He fishes for a pencil, lost somewhere in the midst of all the other pads he’s gone through. Barnes isn’t stupid—he knows the apartment is a shithole of a place, but it’s hard to care some days. The inside of the backpack is clean and smells like fresh paper. Smells good, compared to the rest of the place. 

Barnes cracks open the notebook, thumbs through pages of memories. 

The smile comes back, unpracticed. He notes it in the margins absentmindedly. 

_ Steve,  _ he scrawls, squinting as the lights flicker,  _ can’t seem to stop trying to keep your skinny ass safe, even when you don’t need me anymore and it’s not even your skinny ass in the first place. Gave a kid from work my last plum today and I remembered the week you got pneumonia and I gave you half of all my meals, even though we were both starving . I remembered some of it before, but remembering shit I did in the past and wrapping my mind now around why I ever thought any of it was a good idea are two different things. _

_ I think I get it, a bit, now.  _

Barnes closes the notebook and leans his head back with a sigh. 

He tosses the pencil back in the bag, tucks the notebook back in, makes sure none of the pages are wrinkled.

 

* * *

 

**iii.**

 

It’s a goddamn beautiful day outside and even Barnes can’t deny that. Sun’s shining and everything, but not too brightly, and he stops by the little market stall to buy two plums, just like always. 

He pulls the cap down further as he walks, staring out into the busy streets and wondering when it all became a jumbled up routine that was halfway familiar. 

Wake up, scribble down the lingering remnants of dreams, wonder if they’re real or if he’s just making shit up again. Get out, groceries— _ you got out of that mess in D.C. already so it’d be a damn shame if you didn’t take care of yourself and died, Barnes, remember that, remember it— _ grabs those plums just like usual. Go down to work some days, when he’s feeling good about the entire fucked up world. 

Somewhere along the way,  _ fight off Hydra assholes  _ stopped being an item in that list. It’s not like they don’t try anymore—more like Barnes put in some extra effort to slip ‘em instead of meeting ‘em head on. S’not worth it, he tells himself

By the time he gets home, though, there’s already something not quite right. 

Sun’s still streaming, but Barnes sees the footprints in the dust outside the door, spots half a shadow through the dirty window.

He curls his hand around the plastic bag, heads in through the back as quietly as he can. 

And then there’s Steve. 

Just standing there, like nothing at all’s changed, like the most goddamned natural thing in the world. He’s wearing that stupid helmet and bigger than ever and he looks exactly like Bucky remembers him. 

_ Fucking hell,  _ Barnes thinks and almost drops his plums. 

 

* * *

 

Later, when he’s wondering how the hell Steve’s managed to drag him back into all this crap when he’d been doin’ pretty well just on his own thank you very much, Barnes thinks,  _ I just wanted to buy my plums goddammit.  _ __


End file.
